Gov. Sam Brownback and His Staff Must Stop Trying to Fool Kansans on Tax Cuts
What else is Brownback hiding from the people of Kansas?
That’s a sobering detail you won’t hear from Gov. Sam Brownback or his staff. They continue to promote the myth that tax cuts will bring in more money — ignoring the reality that Kansas’ budget ended the last fiscal year $300 million below expectations.
State officials again undermined their credibility after the August numbers were released.
In a statement, the Department of Revenue didn’t report the $11.1 million shortfall in income tax receipts. Instead, it opted to say August revenue had been $10.3 million higher than in the same month in 2013, “an indication that either more Kansans are working or they are earning higher wages.”
That was extremely misleading. The agency didn’t acknowledge the fact that income tax revenue in July had been an alarming $15.5 million lower than it had been in July 2013. So for the first two months of the new fiscal year, the state actually had collected $5 million less in those taxes than it did in the last year.
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